Assessment tools for disposable and long durability products

The current market situation is characterized by planned obsolescence. It warns the need to design in a more efficiently way, by optimizing the recycle and disassembly operations and lowering the impact on the environment of all kind of products, from the easiest to the most complex ones. This paper focuses on short-lived and long durability products by analyzing them respectively according to the methodologies developed by the Observatory of EcoPack (OEP) and the Design by Components (DC) that share the same general framework and scenario. For disposable products, i.e. packaging, the analysis was carried out with a comparative analysis on components and communication, up to the definition of guidelines for a specific productive sector. Regarding the long durability goods, i.e. household appliances, the analysis is done according to the DC, in which the complex products are simplify to a function-essential structure. This is the starting point for a new design of complex goods focused on disassembly and maintenance. These two methodologies are able to provide useful tools for designing and innovating, through a scientific quali-quantitative analysis on products that are currently on the market.